Beyond Lemuria is an allegory of good and evil intentions. Two groups of mystic seekers are played by the same actors. The sinister “Draconians” search for ancient super-scientific secrets of power in the caverns under Mt. Shasta, while their counterparts, the “Lothinians” seek spiritual enlightenment by climbing America’s Holy Mountain. Both groups find what they are seeking and get what they deserve.

Director: Gregory Jednack

Writers: Poke Runyon (story)

Stars: Merrick Rees Hamer, Chris Sanders, Emily Moore

Carroll Poke Runyon is a former Green Beret officer and a writer of adventure stories (Argosy Magazine) and novels (Night Jump – Cuba and Commando X, From the Tower of Darkness, and Drell Master). He holds a master’s degree in cultural anthropology from California State University at Northridge, He is a KCCH in the Masonic Scottish Rite. He is an initiate of the Sakya Order of Tibetan tantric Buddhism, and has served as an officer in three active Golden Dawn temples. Runyon knew Israel Regardie and used Regardie’s copy, along with others, in deciphering The Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript. Carroll Poke Runyon is the founding president of The Church of the Hermetic Sciences, and magister of The Order of the Temple of Astarte. He is the writer-producer of a series of occult documentaries on DVD (The Magick of Solomon, Dark Mirror of Magick, and The Rites of Magick). Most recently he wrote and produced an occult science fiction drama Beyond Lemuria, dealing with the mystic legends of California’s Mt. Shasta.

From FATE Magazine, September-October, 2008 page 92 Beyond Lemuria, The Shaver Mystery and the Secrets of Mt. Shasta Written and produced by Poke Runyon, directed by Gregory Jednack Maelstrom Press (Orange, CA) 2007, DVD 120 minutes. Given Hollywood s bottomless thirst for material, and penchant for recycling, it is a bit puzzling that there have been virtually no attempts to bring the visions of Richard S. Shaver to the screen. Shaver s bizarre and allegedly true accounts of torment at the hands of depraved subterranean beings known as Deros would seem to be a good prospect for cinematic realization. (For more on the Shaver Mystery and its relationship to the beginnings of this magazine, see What s This? A Shaver Revival? by Doug Skinner, June 2005.)

Enthusiasts were intrigued by the release of the Shaver-inspired Japanese horror film Marebito in 2004. Now the Shaver Mystery has finally become the focus of a domestic effort. Beyond Lemuria is hardly a work of mainstream Hollywood, however. A production of the California based Church of (the) Hermetic Sciences, the film makes a virtue of a low budget. Computer-generated imagery (a Dero invention if there ever was one) is mercifully absent. Instead, the filmmakers pursue a consciously retro aesthetic with results that call to mind the old Star Trek or Doctor Who TV programs. The plot of Beyond Lemuria centers around a University of California student named William Morgan whose story plays out in parallel narratives. In one he is the committed initiate of a benevolent group of wisdom seekers on a pilgrimage to Mt. Shasta; in the other he is the neophyte pawn of a diabolical cult seeking to make contact with the evil Deros. Elements of Shaver s mythos are woven together with the Lemurian revelations of Frederick Spencer Oliver s 1894 book A Dweller on Two Planets. Complex information about lost civilizations, inter-dimensional travel, and occult science is skillfully presented, and an abundance of esoteric eye candy keeps things visually engaging. Shaver fans will not be disappointed. Reviewed by Andrew Honigman. –Book III, The Green Ray

BEYOND LEMURIA, The Shaver Mystery and the Secrets of Mt. Shasta Digital motion picture in wide screen DVD format Running time: 120 minutes. From: C.H.S. Productions in Association with Maelstrom Press, 2007 Those familiar with previous C.H.S. DVD occult documentaries (The Magick of Solomon, Dark Mirror of Magick and The Rites of Magick) are in for a surprise when they see BEYOND LEMURIA. Yes, there is a minor element of History Channel style documentary in this film but it is worked into the story as necessary background for what is otherwise a suspenseful, thought-provoking science fiction drama.

BEYOND LEMURIA draws upon two contrasting, but related, aspects of modern American folklore that Hollywood and the current fantasy fiction industry have forgotten: the 1940s Shaver Mystery and the 1930s tradition of Atlantean-Lemurian Mystic Masters on California s mysterious Mt. Shasta. Both of these Atlantis-Lemuria survival themes were published as true accounts and both still resonate with thousands of believers. Science fiction writer and surrealist painter Richard S. Shaver believed in the physical reality of the dark, subterranean realm of the Deros, degenerate survivors of Atlantis and Lemuria who still inhabited a secret world-wide network of caverns — and used ancient telepathic ray machines to spy on and torture surface people. These demonic humanoids were responsible for much of the evil and mental illness in our surface world. Whether real or fanciful, Shaver had created a modern, atomic age version of a medieval hell and a new form of demonology. BEYOND LEMURIA postulates that Shaver’s subterranean Dero world exists, but that it is in another dimension. This nearby shadow world can be contacted and entered through a vortex generated by a machine called The Intragravatron. The sinister Draconian Society has secretly funded the development of this device and plans to open the vortex at an inter-dimensional convergence point deep in the lava caves on the northern slopes of Mt. Shasta. There actually is such a cavern complex and the C.H.S. cast and film crew went there on location, filming deep in Pluto s Cave and high on the slopes of Mt. Shasta. In contrast to the evil Draconians, and their subterranean quest, the transcendental Lithonian Brotherhood, headed by Master Phylos (Merrick Rees Hamer), a reincarnated Atlantean magical adept, journey to Mt. Shasta to find spiritual enlightenment. The original story of Phylos was channeled by a 17 year old boy, Frederick Spenser Oliver, back in the late 19th century and published early in the 20th century as ‘A Dweller on Two Planets’. This book became an occult classic. Phylos was the archetype of all subsequent mystic masters, Atlantean and Lemurian, who have since appeared on the upper slopes of America s Sacred Mountain. To present these two totally contrasting, and yet closely related, themes in a symbolic and artistic expression, script writer and producer Poke Runyon chose to encapsulate the entire story in the context of an occult initiation ceremony. In the beginning of the film young candidate William Morgan (Cristofer Sanders) stands before the altar in a mysterious temple. On the altar are two cups: one white and one black. He must choose which cup to drink. An hour glass tells us that the decision must be made before the sand runs out…… It certainly is An Adventure in Wonder and Terror –The Seventh Ray, Book III, The Green Ray –part 2